Divine Touched
What would you do if your god stood before you, spoke directly to you, and told you to kill the woman you love?
I LOVE swords and sorcery stuff. Dragons, wizards, elves, orcs, and all that fantasy land fun. I played World of Warcraft in high school. I watched all the Lords of the Rings movies (and then read the books--don't judge me, I was 11 when the movies came out). I love everything Game of Thrones, again, I'll admit to the show starting me on the books. So what is a girl to do if she is known for steampunk and paranormal, but she really wants to write about knights and ogres? The answer is apparently take a stab at the new genre and hope my readers are into it.
Synopsis:
Harper, Sword Maiden for the illustrious Goddess of the Open Ocean, has
returned to the fabled city of Griffon’s Rock at the end of the Last
Road to rest for the winter months after a disappointing year treasure
hunting. Her rest is cut short by a mysterious storm of divine origin,
an attempted horse theft of her beloved mount, and the sudden appearance
of a beautiful southerner who seems determined to capture Harper’s
heart.
As the snows begin to fall, the intrigue and romance heats
up. The object of Harper’s desire, the mysterious rogue Calista,
appears destined to get everyone into fresh trouble with a mystical
stew-brewing ogre, a greedy guild of Dwarven thieves, and finally an
exalted march out of the snowy north bent on divine retribution.
Harper
must decide if her growing love for Calista is real or a product of the
lies she’s been told. Before the spring thaw, Harper will choose
between the woman she loves and the Goddess that is the source of her
magic.
So here it is, the first chapter of my fantasy adventure epic where a pure-hearted knight struggles with her faith as she falls in love with a cold-blooded assassin. Divine Touched is available:
Kindle,
Kobo,
Nook, and
Paperback
Chapter 1:
The Last Season for an Old Friend
The first storm of
autumn darkened the sea to the northwest, rolling in like gray mountains across
the sky, carrying with it the scent of the winter to come. The Last
Road wound its way up through the granite, heading
north along the coast, with the rocky shore to the west and the groves of stone
berry trees to the east. Ahead, tall like a tooth of the Gods, stood the Screeching
Peak, snow already dusting its
jagged cap, stark white against the foreboding gray sky.
Harper walked slowly,
careful to keep to the right of her warhorse, Aerial. The great gray mare,
sixteen hands tall and stout like a brawny north man, was finally to be
retired. Her coat was lined with scars equal to Harper’s, although the final
wound to end her career left only the tiniest mark, no bigger than an
arrowhead. Aerial was only seventeen seasons with plenty of career left before
her until she lost her left eye to a stone dart of all things at the end of
summer. The armored head-crest she wore in combat would have blocked most
projectiles much larger, but the stone dart found its lucky way through, given
more force by attacking opposite a charge. Harper tried her best to heal the
wound, dropping her attack when Aerial reared, yet even her magic couldn’t
spare her beloved horse’s eye. Enough remained to stitch together a milky globe
that Aerial could barely make out shapes with should Harper pass her hand in
front of it. The rest of her company had already ridden ahead, giving Harper
private time with Aerial for the last return to Griffon’s Rock.
Tears rolled freely
down her cheeks, pausing momentarily on the shelf of her high, refined
cheekbones before tumbling free. Harper was part Sylvan-born on her mother’s
side, giving her slightly tapered tips to her ears, delicately triangular
facial features, and an innate sense for magic. As she wore her honey colored
hair long and typically free flowing, she passed easily for an exotically
lovely human woman with the exception of her eyes. They were an otherworldly
combination of green and blue such as a northern ocean after a violent storm
when the world below the waves is churned to the surface and lit upon by
rarified light breaking through the gray dome of storm clouds. Some said they
shone with an inner light, although Harper was seldom near a reflective surface
to verify.
Though Aerial had long
since lost the need for a lead rope, Harper rested her hand on her equine
friend’s flank as they walked together. The ocean crashed against the granite
shore down the boulder-strewn slope to their left and the autumnal winds blew
through the golden leaves of the stone berry orchards to their right allowing
them both to walk blind, guided north only by the sounds surrounding them.
Aerial sniffed at the
air, flaring her nostrils to take in the scent of the approaching storm and
rain striking saltwater to the north. Harper followed suit, breathing in deeply
the blessing of the Sea Queen. Maraline, Goddess of the Open
Sea, spoke to her followers like
Harper through the ocean’s song. Harper tried her best to see the approaching
storm as a sign of a good resting season to come, a fine farewell to a friend’s
long service, before Aerial and Harper would finally part ways.
Griffon’s Rock rose
out of the base of the Screeching Peak
like a shining jewel among worthless gravel. The city itself, the wintering
home of Harper’s company, was built from the ruins of the Dwarven
City State
that had inhabited the mountain a century before. The Dwarves had come to rely
on the griffons that lived among the peak as their staple herd. Their end came
when the dragons, who also fed upon the griffons, took umbrage with the Dwarves
pillaging their food supply. The Dwarves were exterminated under the flame of
the dragons and the dragons starved slowly after, consuming the last of the
griffons without leaving generations enough to replenish the reduced numbers.
The city of Griffon’s Rock and the
humans who inhabited it learned the lessons of foolish dragons and greedy
Dwarves, focusing instead on the easily fostered crop of stone berries: the
hearty, tree-grown nuts the griffons had once eaten. The shells of the stone
berry were so hard only the griffon’s beaks could crack them, or, as the people
of Griffon’s Rock learned, metal nut crackers in the precise shape of a
griffon’s beak. The nut within was often crushed, mixed with water, and turned
into a gruel for marching troops or high quality mash for warhorses. The armies
of the nation of Vaelandria marched on their stomachs as the old proverb went.
And the stomachs of Vaelandrian horses and men alike were filled with stone
berries grown by the people of Griffon’s Rock. The secondary industry of
Griffon’s Rock was to offer winter housing for mercenary companies.
The treasure seeking
season was coming to a close, although earlier than Harper might have liked.
Harper’s crew, the Dagger Falls Company had been beset by misfortune the entire
season from spring’s first thaw until they’d finally given up their endeavors a
week ago. More fortunate companies would continue their work until the first
snow, which wouldn’t be for another two weeks, collecting coin and treasure for
their benefactors before retiring to Griffon’s Rock. The haul the Dagger Falls
Company managed that season was embarrassingly paltry, and Harper didn’t look
forward to making their report.
They’d lost their Jack
early in the season. Felix, a street urchin who had risen through the ranks of
thieves guilds to turn adventurer and mercenary at the first opportunity, had
served ably as the company’s Jack for four seasons. Early in spring, when they
were working as caravan guards to make their way into the east, a brigand
ambush had struck the wagon train, felling Felix beneath a hale of arrows.
The company tried
their best to replace the talented Jack with little success. Mettler, a
grandiose figure with a flourishing rapier as his favored weapon and a bright
orange sash tied around his head at all times, had hired on once they’d
finished the caravan escort duty. The next job, and Mettler’s only work with
the company, was a reclaiming of a captive nobleman’s daughter. Mettler was to
scale the stone manor’s wall, enter through an open window, and sneak through
the mansion to open the gate for the rest of the company. The loud crash that
followed from within, the shouting of guards, and then the frantic pounding on
the interior of the keep’s massive oak door told the company Mettler had failed
miserably in his task. They’d gained entrance to the keep when the guards burst
out the front door in great numbers to see if the foppish Jack was acting
alone. The Dagger Falls Company battled well, slaying the guards through force
of arms and dumb luck, and ultimately freed the nobleman’s daughter in a distinctly
ham-fisted fashion.
The second replacement
Jack they’d hired on, and the one who managed to follow them the rest of the
summer, was a Havvish woman—Havvish being the diminutive people having arisen
from the union between a Gnome and a Brownie that supposedly took place two
millennia ago—less kind origin stories for the relatively new race said they
sprang from a swamp of particularly irritating water. Short to the tune of
around four feet tall and delicately built, their work as Jacks was legendary and
so the company felt themselves fortunate to find one available for employment.
Unfortunately, so too are the Havvish people known for drinking, gambling,
stealing anything not nailed down, and talking all waking hours and many
slumbering hours as well. Brandinne was talented at her work, there was no
doubt about that, fighting well with her crossbow and daggers, setting
brilliant traps, and flicking locks from their mountings with little more than
a look, but she drove them all to the edge of madness with her prattle and
stink-weed pipe smoking. Sven and Athol, the two brothers whose family was the
company’s benefactor, seriously considered stuffing Brandinne into a sack and
drowning her on so many occasions that Harper actually started to fear for the Jack’s
life. Toward the end of the season, when they were camped at the edge of the
Rusted Plains, Athol had stepped into a leg-turn trap, having somehow found his
way toward Brandinne’s side of the camp in the dark. The trap that cleverly
combined sticks and ropes in such a way that would turn an ankle if stepped
into, had served as a non-lethal warning. Athol claimed he was sleep walking.
Brandinne superficially accepted this excuse, but the damage to the group’s
cohesion was done. Brandinne took her earnings and left them in the next town.
On the next job,
Harper’s trusted mount and warhorse of great import to the company’s success,
took the stone dart to the eye when they were to clear out a colony of goblins
that had taken up residence in a town’s only functional mill. The Dagger Falls
Company took a vote, declared the season hexed beyond repair, and retired to
Griffon’s Rock to spend the winter months searching for a new Jack and better
fortune for the spring thaw to come.
Harper finally
strolled through the gates of the city’s massive walls, once built by talented
Dwarven masons. The cobblestone streets, brick buildings with thatched roofs,
and hearty agrarian people all felt familiar and safe to Harper. The citizenry
of Griffon’s Rock were abuzz with preparations for the return of the mercenary
companies. At least two dozen or more companies took their winter rest in
Griffon’s Rock, bringing with them wealth spent liberally on drink,
entertainment, finery, and, if any was left over, supplies for the next season.
The town greeted the companies with great hospitality, plied them with food,
drink, and wanted wares, and then sent them on their way the following spring,
picked clean of nearly every coin. Harper was different. As a Sword Maiden of
the Sea Queen, she spent her winter months at the temple to Maraline, healing
the sick, performing miracles in the name of her Goddess, and growing the flock
of the faithful. Her wealth remained her own, saved in the temple’s coffers,
spared by her duty to her faith.
She walked the
familiar narrow alleys along the outer wall to the livery where she would
finally dip into her mountain of savings to provide comfort for an old friend
who had served well. The livery master came out to greet her, dressed in the
stained brown clothes of his work, his equally filthy hair pulled back into a
long braid. He smelled strongly of the stables, of sweet hay, pungent horse
manure, and leather tack.
“Greetings to you,
Lady Harper,” the stable master said, raising his hand in a three fingered
salute meant to show fealty to an agent of the divine.
“Greetings, stable
master,” Harper replied. “I have need of new service.”
“New or returned
service, my lady?”
“Aerial has lost use
of her left eye in the course of duty,” Harper explained, gently turning her
horse’s head to show the stable master the truth of her words. “I wish her to
rest in a retirement well-earned, paid for by the coin she helped acquire.”
“Begging your
apologies, lady, but we do not provide horse ‘retirement’ services here.” The
livery master fidgeted a bit, not wishing to look upon Harper when delivering
the news. “Perhaps you should see to the butcher or one of the slaughterhouses
for such a thing.”
The implication struck
Harper like a cold knife to the stomach, which she had experienced and hadn’t
enjoyed. “No, not in the sense of retire from this world,” she said.
“Begging apology
again, but what other retirement might a horse be offered?”
“To rest well, eat in
peace, the occasional freedom to run across an open pasture, and then sleep in
a dry stable.” Harper held Aerial’s head close to her own, breathing deeply of
the warm, familiar smell of her beloved friend. “She has earned all of these
things and more. Will you see to her comfort as a loyal servant of the Sea Queen?”
The livery master,
still appearing baffled beyond understanding, nodded his agreement. “I do not
understand your purpose in this, but if this horse is a servant of the Sea
Queen, I will care for her as I would my own daughter.” The livery master took
the offered bridle, gave the horse a perplexed look, and led her into the
stable.
Harper considered
correcting the livery master before he departed, to tell him she meant he
was a loyal servant of the Sea Queen as she had seen him come within the crystal-lined
walls of the temple, but she thought better of it. Aerial could certainly be
called a favored child of the Sea Queen and if that helped the livery master
understand the request better, then Harper was glad to see it done.
The first rains of the
coming storm struck her before she could even turn to take her leave. She
tilted her head back to take in the blessed storm, bathing in the baptismal of
her faith as she walked the streets toward the Thundering
Dawn Inn.
People gathered beneath awnings, at windows, and even dared to stand at the
edge of the road to watch her pass, Sword Maiden of the Sea, drenched and
happy. Harper knew this was as close to the divine as many would come. Few
witnessed Gods and fewer still received the personal boon that was magic of the
holy—Harper had done both.
She was but a child of
single digit years, the daughter of a fisherman in Anilthine, when she beheld
Maraline in all her glory. A blockade had shut the city’s bay to the world over
a trade dispute, keeping Harper’s father on shore to fish from the docks with a
pole like a common angler. She had joined him at the edge of the jetty, the
manmade barrier of piled rocks to partially close off the bay to the wild
waters of the ocean. On that fateful day, she went to see the hulking ships of
a rival city bobbing along the lazy blue waves as she’d heard they were
fantastically different. She was nearly out of her father’s line of sight,
although not entirely as this would raise his voice and she didn’t want that,
but she had wanted a closer look at the great warships. At the furthest edge of
the jetty, where the sea spray washed over her whenever a wave crashed against
the rocks, she finally saw the whole of the armada blocking in their fair city.
A storm unlike anything she’d seen before or since, rose like a spear in the
sky, slicing across the open ocean as no weather could. The men upon the
blockade ships shouted, attempted to raise anchor and set sail, but it was all
in vain. The storm slashed through their ranks with determined vengeance,
shattering ships with lightning, colossal waves, and sail-tattering winds.
Standing amidst the storm, gigantic like the statue of the Goddess within the
city’s square, was the Goddess Maraline incarnate. She walked along the ocean,
smoothing the water as she went, creating a causeway in escort of a lone ship.
She passed by the jetty, a few dozen yards only separating Harper from the
Goddess of the Open Sea.
She was magnificent, beautiful, glowing like the noonday sun set to bounce off
the water. Harper felt her power in a way she’d never felt anything before. The
touch of the moment lingered, found a resting place in her, and dwelled there
like a flame. Her father ran to her, attempted to collect her from the end of
the jetty, but he too was struck by the power of the Goddess and, like his
daughter, could only hold his ground in awe of witnessing the divine. The ship
the Goddess had personally escorted through the blockade held a high priestess
with the power to raise the dead, or so the stories went. All Harper knew was
that she must devote her life to this great and powerful lady of the ocean.
The ember of the
divine planted in her from proximity to the Goddess had remained, growing
slowly, the source of Harper’s magic and anchoring her connection to the deity
she served. The rain soaked her hair, made heavy her linen tunic, and seeped
into her leather riding boots, but she didn’t care. The rain also grew the
ember of the divine within her and she felt closer to the Goddess because of
it.
Alarm rose out of the
west. Someone was ringing the great iron bell above the western walls, calling
aid to the docks and the lighthouse. Harper snapped out of her reverie. People
were rushing toward the sound of the clanging bell. Harper joined them in the
charge, sprinting through the puddles collecting in the street. The lateness of
the hour and the darkness of the storm clouds left little light to follow by.
The storm prevented any torch from gaining purchase, leaving the help called by
the bell to flow through the streets almost blindly.
When she broke free of
the city, Harper got her first look at what raised the alarm. The great stone
lighthouse on the edge of the jetty lay dark, likely losing its light under the
ferocity of the storm. White-capped waves smashed upon the rocks, rolling out
of the angry North Sea in gray mountains of water. Amid
this turbulent hell of livid water, the remains of a ship was being battered
against the rocks beneath the lighthouse. Cargo crates, barrels, debris, and
people bobbed as black dots amid the choppy water of the bay, washed over from
time to time when a colossal breaker roared clean over the jetty.
Great pyres of pitch
laden logs began lighting around the bay, finally granting light enough to
effect a rescue. Men with ropes and floats rushed to the docks and onto the
jetty. They struggled hard to pull the sailors from the angry gray waters even
as the spray and wind threatened to pluck the rescuers from the wooden planks
of the docks and granite boulders of the jetty.
Harper rushed to their
aid, making her way down the path toward the lighthouse. She slid her slender,
two-handed sword from the scabbard across her back. The beautiful, holy weapon
imbued with the power of the Goddess sprang to life when the rain struck it.
This was no accidental squall of the coming season. The blade recognized the
hand of the divine in the waters. What could the Goddess wish to destroy on
that ship, Harper wondered. She braved the crashing waves at the end of the
stone precipice the lighthouse was perched upon, raised the beautiful blade of
the Goddess high above her, and bathed the entire bay in the soft blue glow of
the guiding light of the Sea Queen.
Rescuers did their
best to work by the light, hauling man after soggy man from the waves by the
light until the storm finally battered the last of the ship into little more
than kindling, and the entire hulk disappeared beneath the darkened waves.
